Things I L.O.V.E. to H.A.T.E.

Let’s talk for a minute about pet peeves. You know that feeling you get that starts deep down, maybe emanating from your bones, that just takes over your whole body, tingling your skin, or sends your mind into overdrive, steam blowing out your ears, when you hear that one word, or see that one thing (or 10) that you would say you quite possibly hate the most in the world?

Okay, maybe that is a slight over-exaggeration, but for a hothead such as myself, it’s not that far off really. When I read, or hear, or see one of the things I would classify as a pet peeve, my brain shuts down for a second, possibly as a defense mechanism? Maybe it is a way to protect myself from the stupidity I had just been subjected to, because in essence, my pet peeves are attributed to other people’s stupidity...well, most of them anyway...

So without further ado, I’d like to share them with you, in the hopes that I’m not the only person on the planet bothered by these things.

Pet Peeve No. 1: “your” and “you’re”

Now I’ve heard a lot of people express distaste for this grammatically incorrect error, and yet, even they make it. I’m going to be brutally honest here: It’s an American thing. To my best recollection, I never ran across it with such frequency in South Africa. I used to attribute it to being a simple typing error, and then I heard it in a song and I thought: if they don’t even know the difference in pronunciation, how the hell can we expect them to spell it properly on paper?

Needless to say, that is not an excuse and my skin still cringes whenever I see the error on paper (or on Facebook where it abounds!...Side note: when do you think Microsoft will add the word “Facebook” to their dictionary?) So let me see if I can clarify this for all of you 'your'-ers out there when you should really be saying 'you’re':

Your = possessive pronoun, as in “your dog just pooped in my yard.” You’re = the contraction of ‘you are’, as in “you’re (you are) going to have to pick that sh** up yourself.” Thank you for your cooperation. It will go a long way toward keeping me sane.

Pet Peeve No. 2: “déjà vu all over again”

I hear this frequently, even by professionals on the morning CBS news. According to Merriam Webster, déjà vu literally means: a feeling that one has seen or heard something before. I like to define it as the feeling that you have been through something before, or more simply, that you are reliving an experience, or even more simply, that something is happening again. Hence “déjà vu all over again” is a redundant statement. What is redundant? “Characterized by or containing an excess; specifically: using more words than necessary.” Déjà vu suffices to mean, “Man, I swear I’ve been through this before!” don’t be obnoxious by adding the 'all over again', because what I hear is, “Man, I swear this is happening all over again all over again” [repetition intended], and who wouldn’t be annoyed by someone saying that?!?

Pet Peeve No. 3: Running water

When you hear the soothing sound of a brook flowing, I hear the sound of thousands of gallons of water being wasted when we’re in a water shortage. Okay, maybe not very much of that sentence is true, as far as I know we aren’t in a drought and water flowing in a brook isn’t being wasted, unless I claimed that that is good water that has gone to waste as it isn’t being used… which would probably lead to a public outcry over my dislike, nay hatred, for the earth. Again, not true.

What I do hate though, is the sound of water running from a tap (aka faucet in America). For example, the incessant drip drip drip of a tap that hasn’t been closed properly. Or the sound of the water running as someone takes a shower or brushes their teeth. It sends shivers down my spine. I have to consciously ignore the sound or move to a room where I don’t hear it. It’s that bad. Thankfully though, or by miraculous design, it doesn’t bother me as I’m the one taking the shower or brushing my teeth. Otherwise, I know a few people who wouldn’t want to be around my stinky, unbathed, unbrushed self.

Pet Peeve No. 4: Idiots

So you know how when you’re driving and you’re coming up on a car that has its brake lights on in front of you so you move over so as not to have to brake and then the lane you moved in to slows down even more than the one you were in to begin with but you already lost your place so can’t move back over? (I swear I just wrote that entire run-on sentence without taking a breath.) Ya. That pisses. me. off. to a degree no human being should have to be put through.

Sometimes I’m driving and I like to think they’re doing it just to spite me (seriously). I’ll be in lane A and the car in front of me slows down. So I move to lane B, but for no reason at all that car slows down and the car in lane A moves past us, so I move into lane A and low and behold the idiot in the car decides to slow down again while the car in lane B flies by. At that point I can guarantee that no one would want to be in the car with me...

There was a time, not all that long ago, when it seemed I had gained a small percentage of the patience I never had. I attributed it to my boyfriend, who is inhuman in his ability not to get frustrated. Sadly though, being away from him for the past year has led to me revert back with an even higher degree of impatience, as if the demons are punishing me for leaving the dark side for that brief spell.

Anyway at times it seems like the harder I try to stay calm, the more people do to try to push me over the edge, so what’s the point in trying?